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Gilgamesh Free State Officer Candidate Academy
|destroyed= |purpose=Officer academy |planet= |city=New Belgrade |founders= |era= |affiliation= * **Gilgamesh Free State }} The Gilgamesh Free State Officer Candidate Academy, also known simply as the GFS Academy, was an officer candidate academy for the armed forces of the Gilgamesh Free State. Established in with the aid of advisors, the Academy took in its first class that year of about one hundred candidates. This number continually increased through the years as the GFS's military demanded more and more officers. Unlike officer academies, which generally consisted of four years in peacetime, the GFS Academy's curriculum was three and a half years before commissioning until the curriculum modifications in changed it to two and a half years. During the UNSC-GFS War in , the Academy's cadets were evacuated only days before the invasion, with the cadets assigned to various regiments. After the GFS's counterattack, the Academy was found to have been destroyed in the invasion, and the remaining cadets were educated in makeshift accomodations while the campus was rebuilt. However, before it could be fully rebuilt, the UNSC attacked again, destroying it again. It was finally rebuilt in 2568 after the establishment of Gilgamesh as an Independent Commonwealth. History Formation Active Service Destruction Reinstatement Training The training at the Academy was focused on converting those coming from civilian life into the military into officers for the various branches of the Gilgamesh Free Armed Forces, with the students known as cadets. Those servicemembers who had expressed an interest in becoming an officer were instead known as officer candidates, and were educated separately in a six-month course known as the Officer Training Course. As a result, cadets from the GFS Academy only made up a small fraction of active officers in the military and were sometimes looked down upon, but often their quality was equal to those who had gone through the Officer Training Course. During the Academy's first year, the training was split into thirds corresponding with each year of training. The first year involved learning basic military skills through a similar system to underclassmen at the military academies. The second year was focused on applying those skills learned to mid-level leadership positions within the Academy itself. The third year was focused on higher-level operations, with the final half-year of a cadet's career at the Academy focused upon preparing them for the career they were to enter upon active duty. For aviation cadets, they would spend time at the Capital Defense Brigade in New Belgrade preparing for flight training, while others would spend their time interning at the unit they were to be stationed at, before finally returning to New Belgrade for their commissioning. The main exception to this were those destined for the medical career, who would begin their education during this time at the New Belgrade Medical Institute. With the conversion to a two and a half year system in 2553, the Academy cut off the third year, instead focusing on providing leadership opportunities during the latter half of the first year and throughout the second year, with the remaining half year used for the same purpose as previously. Once the Academy was reinstated with the recreation of the Free State, it was converted to a standard four-year UNSC peacetime system and the same curriculum as academies such as the . Category:Safe Havens